Easter Renewal

As mass started yesterday morning– Easter Sunday– I didn’t feel my usual excitement about Easter. Even last year when it felt like everyone was wearing black (we all know I wasn’t!), I had that sense of renewal inside me and I wasn’t going to be swayed by the lack of hope of so many people. It wasn’t that I felt bad yesterday, I just didn’t feel the excitement I usually do on Easter morning, the times when the joyful music stays in my head long after I’ve left mass.

I admit this was my fault. I had been so caught up in finishing my book Route 66 Dreams when Ash Wednesday rolled around that my Lenten plans never got off the ground. I was ready to move onto a new book, to use that time to focus on a story that is partially finished, but I had to remain with the prior story and then I was too exhausted for several weeks to get my head wrapped around the “new” story.

However, as we traveled through the Easter mass yesterday, it was Fr. Steve’s homily that resonated with me. In particular, when he said–

“People are suffering and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. But God is mysteriously at work. We might not be able to make sense of it all, but God is doing something more wonderful than we can imagine. In due time, it will all be revealed. So, we live with hope, and we do what we can to alleviate the distress around us.”

That was what I needed. I don’t know that I realized it, but after he spoke it, I felt as if a weight, the weight of worry I’ve had for so many things– in my world and beyond– dissipate.

We all need Easter Sunday. While it might mean different things in different faiths, we all need to take a step back, to be reminded to let go, to have faith, to continue to pray and, mostly, hope.

Easter should be a day to refresh oneself for the journey. It was the end of the Lenten journey– however that looked for each of us– and start of a new journey. It’s as if we took a day to stop, to rest, to feel the warm sun on our faces or warmth of people around us, to smell the flowers, enjoy the colored eggs, eat a tasty piece of cake.

Now we have the strength to go forward and continue to believe.

Easter Perspective

I had taken some time on Saturday morning to photograph the dogs– Hattie and Lilly– for Easter. Neither one was happy with me (although after they ran off when I told them we were finished, Lilly hurriedly pushing the bunny ears off her head, they were easily swayed back into happiness with treats) and later I told Greg about how obvious it would be when I posted the photo on social media Sunday morning.

"No one is ever happy on Easter," he said. When gave him a funny look, he added, "Everyone is uptight about something."

Then I remembered the Easter Sundays of my childhood: we were always late for mass. I have no idea why and I never asked my mom when she was alive because she always got upset and accused me of thinking she wasn't a good enough mother. But the church filled up early and it meant we were left standing in the entry way listening to mass. For an hour. 

In that hour I had little understanding of what Easter meant. Yes, I'd taken religion classes growing up, but honestly it didn't mean a lot to me.

Then about six years ago, the same time I had returned to going to mass weekly, I found myself leaving Easter mass wanting to sing, feeling the happiness of coming out of darkness into the light. And each year since then, Easter has come to mean more to me.

I'm sure that I could argue that I'm older now and I "get" it more than I used to but I believe it's just a sense of having traveled multiple journeys of finding myself in darkness and having to seek out light. Each year Lent reminds me that there is hope, that we can get to the light, to the sunshine, that we don't need to be scared.

And a beautiful, cloudless sky– like we had in Albuquerque yesterday– doesn't hurt.